Notes: Based on the manga by Kaneda Mario, available in North America from Tokyopop.

Rating:

Girls Bravo

Synopsis

Sasaki Yukinari is a guy who has been exploited and abused by girls his entire life, right up to the point where he now gets hives when touching them.

One day, after being exploited by the girls at school into doing all their chores, he returns home. There, he gets beat up to within an inch of his life by Kojima Kirie, for having the audacity to just waltz into HIS OWN HOME and go straight into HIS OWN BATHROOM.

So, she takes a running start and knees the guy so hard in the face, he flies through the air and lands in the bathtub. And as she was about to inflict more damage on him, Yukinari gets transported to Seiren, a world that consists of 90% women who go completely insane at even such a beat-down loser as him. There, he meets Miharu, who is to become the only female character that doesn't ever beat him up over something. Or rather, anything.

Review

Through some sort of cosmic irony, I watched this show at the same time as I was watching DearS. And it was like watching the exact opposite of DearS. You see, where DearS had subservient women and the whole "slave angle" thing going, Girls Bravo features perhaps the most abusive women I have ever seen in any anime, and I've seen both Love Hina and the Ranma 1/2 movies.

I mean, Yukinari and Kirie are practically CHILDHOOD FRIENDS! Who needs enemies when you have friends who beat you up daily over completely ridiculous pretenses? Oh, by the way, if something embarrassing happens between Yukinari and Miharu, expect Kimie to walk in on them EVERY SINGLE GODDAMN TIME. And brace yourself for the violence: at one point, Kimie actually kicks Yukinari's head, making his head slam into the edge of the bathtub so hard, he starts bleeding profusely. This, mind you, she did right after she promised never to do anything like that again. What does it take for him to say "get the hell out of my house, and never return"?

And that was just the first episode. Later episodes presented us with such wonderful paragons of humanity, like Fukuyama Kazuharu -- a mix between Kuno Tatewaki and Nanbara Kotaro with all the charm and fun removed, and also the only person who DESERVES all the violence directed at him -- and Fukuyama Risa -- because every romantic comedy needs a psychotic suitor that decides the main loser should be her boyfriend through completely insane reasons. ("The horoscope for today: You will meet your soulmate, and he will have a checkered handkerchief, a bandage on his face and a Kilty-chan keychain." Take a wild, stinking guess at who fulfills all THOSE demands.)

Well, all the violence aside, this is also a rather fan service-laden show. The girls are, again, rather ... well, big ... for being so young. There is also a lot of nude bathing scenes, though they were all obstructed with some odd sort of censorship in the form of a white haze covering up their essentials. This might be just some clever method included for TV viewing in Japan, and the DVDs -- should this show ever be licensed and released -- will most likely not feature this. I can't say for certain, though.

The art and animation is rather good too, I suppose. The music isn't the world, but at least it didn't annoy me in any way. But then, things like that doesn't really matter when the contents fail to entertain. And, quite frankly, this is one awful show.

After lengthy consideration, I dropped it to one star. Why? Imagine this anime the way it had been if the main character was a girl, and was being abused the same way by a bunch of guys. — Stig Høgset

Recommended Audience: The violence gets rather nasty, even in the name of comedy. Characters get kicked, kneed in the face, stomped on and God knows what else I have shut out of my mind since I promised myself not to watch another episode ever again. Also, the show is THICK with fan service that, while censored in the digital sources, might be VERY explicit in any potential future release. That's just about it, though.